The interview included clinical governance issues such as dealing with how I would deal with complaints.

They also asked about coping with difficult incidents with patience, violence and suspected criminal activity.

Infection controls were quite high up on the agenda as this is a highly political and important issue at the moment.

They then went on to look at my particular skills such as leadership ability and working in a clinical team. They asked about what I expected in the position as a manager and how I would change things if they did not meet my standards.

How could I deal with staff morale issues, motivate and encourage staff, particularly in stressful situations or when they had problems out of work hours.

Finally they wanted to know whether I had knowledge of the NHS and what local and central government initiatives had been recently introduced and whether I could talk about any specific targets that affect may affect the job and how I would best deal with these.

My wife took an interview for a similar sort of position. I think the questions were well known by people in her department so she got lots of tips beforehand. They are generally quite hard interviews though because people's lives are on the live.